Vettel: Second was the optimum

Sebastian Vettel believes second place was the best result possible for Red Bull Racing in today’s Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying session.

The German benefited from Lewis Hamilton’s exit in Q1 and finished the top 10 shoot-out just under five tenths behind pole-sitter Nico Rosberg.

“I think probably the nature of the track suits us a bit more – less straights,” he said when asked where Red Bull’s speed has come from. “I think historically we’ve always had a competitive car around here.

“It seems that we are a little bit closer but obviously Nico’s final lap was very good so the gap was again quite big – bigger than we were hoping for, because as you mentioned if we get everything perfect and Nico maybe has a bit of a wobble, we can have a crack, but it didn’t happen.

“They did a god job. Obviously Q3 was a mixed bag, it could have been anything, so therefore with the more dry conditions at the end to get second was the optimum.”

Vettel believes the team has moved slightly closer to Mercedes in Hungary and is expecting a close fight with Williams to be second best.

Daniel Ricciardo was fourth fastest in Q3, completing what was a positive qualifying session for the Milton Keynes-based outfit.

“I think we definitely made a big improvement compared to yesterday,” said the Aussie. “We got out there in P3 and went to the top of the timesheets for a little while, which was pleasant to see.

“We definitely solved a lot of issues from yesterday and we are back to a competitive pace. Seb [Vettel] was nearly a second quicker yesterday and we got back on pace with him. Q1 and Q2 were alright, we were pretty much matching each other, but Q3 was tricky.

“Once the rain came down, I struggled to get the tyres into a good working range for that one timed lap and we also lost a bit of the rear wing as well, a piece that fell off during Q3. That didn’t help our efforts. Better than yesterday but obviously we were hoping for the front row after we saw Lewis [Hamilton] make an early exit.”

Image courtesy of Octane Photographic

Jack Leslie

Jack Leslie is a freelance motorsport and Formula 1 journalist. He has been part of the Richland F1 team since the very start and made his F1 paddock debut for the website at the 2014 Austrian Grand Prix. Jack also writes for Car Throttle, RumbleStripNews, Formula1Blog, PureF1 and F1 Plus, as well as running a popular blog.